Catch-up rate in 5.2

what it takes now, when 5.2 is out, to catch up regarding PvE gear - do you still need to do tons of dailies, or new reputations/crafting/whatever else lets you to skip daily quest grinding?
I stopped playing in early MoP mainly for that, so if I decide to come back, do I jump back to the same pit or there is another route?

If you're in a raiding guild, you still want to do dailies to get the Lesser Charms to get your 3 bonus rolls a week. But, you don't need to do the 5.0/5.1 dailies since you can gear up solely through 5.0 LFR, then to 5.2 LFR, where the valor items will be from the raid rep. You don't need to do the 5.2 dailies, but again, if you're in a raiding guild, you WILL need to do dailies for the bonus roll.

Do the solo scenario on isle of thunder, it gives you a lot of coins for 5.0/5.1 content to use. Like 10 or more, you will be able to coin most T14 bosses every week.
And valor gear is enough from klaxxi and shadopan, reps you have there just from doing quests (honored pandas and klaxxi without commendations, revered with them)

No daily quests at all yet. Although once you have +100% rep account wide AND the old daily hubs are almost dead they are not that bad. You know, daily quests are only fun if there are no other people doing them. Im on high pop server, I steer clear from isle of thunder now, but old factions are more than enough to get me "new" charms to use in T15 progression.

What about dailies reputation reward (unlockable valor items) and all that farming stuff? Are these kind of mandatory, or can be dropped?
I am not in a serious raiding guild (more like social raiding, well, you know), but may want to step in here and there from time to time.

And a noob question - what are those coins and how to spend them? heard about it from both of you... are you talking about the same luck charms for extra loot drops?

1) Kill rares until you get the Key for the solo scenario, should drop off the first rare if not keep trying it usually comes by the second.
2) Run the solo scenario, watch a guide on how to get the most chests as possible, don't aim for the last boss just aim for chests.
3) If not Coin capped, you can kill the summon-able bosses that also grant Coins.
4) Run LFR. Use coins on the bosses you need gear from the most. You can run LFR more than once and use the bonus roll even if you are loot locked.
5) Don't bother with the rep grind, save your VP for the Shadopan Assault gear (you can get rep from running LFR).

Also try and get into a MSV / ToES / HoF normal run. The fights are a lot easier now, and basic LFR knowledge is all you need.

A mix of blue/green quest rewards and some crafted epics or PVP gear should be enough to get you into the LFR version of MV. Maybe throw in a couple heroics or scenarios. Purchase the necklace from Shado-Pan Assault as soon as you can afford it, it requires no rep grinding.

I personally was getting enough drops in LFR that running both wings of MV got me enough drops to start HoF MV, and that got me enough drops to start TES. Getting to ilevel 480 will let you do ToT LFR.

What about dailies reputation reward (unlockable valor items) and all that farming stuff? Are these kind of mandatory, or can be dropped?
I am not in a serious raiding guild (more like social raiding, well, you know), but may want to step in here and there from time to time.

And a noob question - what are those coins and how to spend them? heard about it from both of you... are you talking about the same luck charms for extra loot drops?

If you have already a main and have the commendations lots of those reps are so easy peasy to get revered with that you won't even notice them, Lotus is the only one that require some kind of effort still but really not that much. If that's your first char to 90 yes it is kind of pain if you want to catch up, but the others have pretty much covered it in case you don't want to lose too much time behind daily quests

Oh to notice that the 5.0 valor item have been moved to honored and have little cost, so it is easier to get them as Klaxxi and Shado-Pan give access to them by doing exactly 0 daily quests as long as you complete the zones (Klaxxi arrive up to reverred with only the storyline quests and a set of daily or slightly more without commendations)

Doesn't take very long to catch up in 5.2. My mage hit 90 about 2-3 weeks ago and I am now over 490 ilvl. I just did the usual dungeons for gearing up and doing the Isle of Thunder dailies is very helpful for the 476 gear. Also if you are lucky you can get a Key to the Palace of Lei Shen which can provide a lot of elder charms to use in 5.0 raids. I had 18 Elder charms so I was lucky enough to use one on every boss and the 2 world bosses so I geared pretty fast but I did need some crafted gear to push me into ToT LFR so if that is an option for you it will really speed things up.

Level a priest and dinged 90 a little over a week ago, started 90 at ilvl 435, as of today I'm on ilvl 490, just do the scenario were you get elder charms from the epic key on Thunder Island I get between 17-20 elder charms a week and also a 502 neckless. Then just did LFR's using a coin on every boss. WIN

-is the 5.2 dailys better than 5.0
-upon getting to 90 should I just skip all other dailys and just goto 5.2?
-I only ask this because its a pain to get 470 (for raid finder) doing all the 5.0 dailys.
-are the rares very rare? I like spawn once a day like some around the world?

-is the 5.2 dailys better than 5.0
-upon getting to 90 should I just skip all other dailys and just goto 5.2?
-I only ask this because its a pain to get 470 (for raid finder) doing all the 5.0 dailys.
-are the rares very rare? I like spawn once a day like some around the world?

my alt went 445->493 0 dailies, crafted some 496 gear on main.
spamming hcs then lfr, rares spawn every hour or less, and there's 8 of them, all faction tag just hit it and u get loot.

-is the 5.2 dailys better than 5.0
-upon getting to 90 should I just skip all other dailys and just goto 5.2?
-I only ask this because its a pain to get 470 (for raid finder) doing all the 5.0 dailys.
-are the rares very rare? I like spawn once a day like some around the world?

1. Subjective - I really like the new island though.
2. 5.0 Dailies will help you get to 480 for ToT LFR quicker but they are in no way shape or form "mandatory" you can gear up 5 Mans HC --> LFR T1 --> LFR T2 etc it is very very very easy to get 20 old bonus roll coins (without doing dailies), they have doubled the drop rate in 5.0 LFR and from Bonus Roll in 5.0 LFR.
3. Not that rare at all you could kill 10 an hour if you really wanted to.